Joan Carol Snyder-Stone (songwriter/singer/publisher/author)
has over one
hundred published songs to her credit, many of which have been recorded
and label-released by various artists.
She was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and has one older brother, Ronald.
When she was seven, her parents, Daisy and Leo Kiczenski, moved to a farm
in Punxsutawney, PA, where she developed a deep love for animals and was
exposed to country music. Her parents relocated to Southern California
when she was twelve. She attended San Fernando High School with her
brother, Ronald, who became an all-city football player. During her senior
year, she was chosen to be a cheerleader as well as Vice President of her
senior class, the Elites.
After graduation, she worked as a manager’s secretary at Bank of America.
Later, she became a secretary to several engineers who worked on the
Apollo program in the Aerospace Industry. During this time frame, she
married her high school sweetheart, Carl Riefler, who played major league
baseball for the Houston Astros. Four years later, they amicably went
their separate ways.
Since she loved music, she went to work for Capitol Records in Hollywood.
For two years, she gained invaluable experience in Capitol’s Promotional
and A&R Departments, where she met artists such as Peggy Lee, Merle
Haggard, Glen Campbell, the Beach Boys and the Beatles.
She then had the opportunity to work for Universal Studios where she
worked for many years in various production and executive secretarial
positions. For seven of these years, she worked for the Vice President of
Movies/Mini-series, which exposed her to the inner workings of the
industry.
Though she was a late-bloomer, she dusted off her secret songwriting
dream. She met Cliffie Stone at a C&W club called the Silverado where he
was emceeing a local talent show where one of her songs was performed.
Since Cliffie also was the director of Gene Autry’s publishing companies,
he told her to call him for an appointment. A month later, Cliffie met
with her and her co-writer, Marc Levine (a bassist for Barry Manilow) and
published six of their songs.
After Cliffie's first wife, Dorothy, passed away, they started dating and
were married in 1989. For nine precious years, they had the time of their
lives! This beloved country legend groomed her in all areas of the music
industry (songwriting, publishing, management, record/concert production
and promotion). She co-authored a book with Cliffie, Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Songwriting But Didn't Know Who to Ask. They
were interviewed on the Larry King Show as well as countless country TV and
radio stations throughout the USA. After Cliffie passed away, she
transcribed the tapes of his second book ~ You Gotta
Be Bad Before You Can Be Good. The book promotional party was held at the
Country Music Hall of Fame Museum in Nashville. She spent a year promoting it,
which includes countless radio interviews in the USA.
After her beloved parents passed away, she relocated
to the beautiful Red Rocks of Sedona, AZ. She is President
of their music publishing company and administers their song
catalog. She continues to creatively write on many subject matters.
Her other interests include singing, tennis, hiking, gardening
and sharing life with her beloved Shih Tzu dogs: Tempo (whom Cliffie
dearly loved along with their other two dogs, Viva and Melody
); and Jasmine, who was born on April 16, 2006 and
is Valentine's half sister.
 Valentine February 14, 2006 April 24, 2006 |
 Jasmine Valentine's half sister |
Website Photographic Credits
In alphabetical order, I would like to
acknowledge and thank the following photographers:
ACM Archives, Kim Beal, BMI Archives, Capitol Records
Archives,
Alan Clark Archives, Howard Levine, Victor Muschetto,
NBC Archives, Phil Pool and Hope Powell.